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Spirituality in a Postmodern Age-Challenges and Questions

Creator

Laude, Patrick

Abstract

This essay examines the impact of postmodernism on religious thought and spiritual practice, particularly in relation to the following themes: the crisis and the erosion of religious institutions, the fundamentalist ‘solidification’ of religious consciousness, the postmodern theme of ‘the end of esoterism’, the claims of the emergence of a new global spiritual consciousness, and the global and ‘virtual’ dissemination of spiritual knowledge. The author seeks to demonstrate that the various religious and spiritual traditions of the world remain the repository of irreplaceable values and means of inner transformation, and the only adequate alternative to the double challenge of formalistic and ideological religious identities on the one hand, and non-traditional forms of spirituality such as the New Age, on the other hand. He also argues for a greater essentialization and universalization of traditional spirituality to respond to the particular conditions of the age.

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